WHILE WORLD IS IN PARALYSIS, U.S. IS THE COP

In 1973, as the Vietnam War was finally winding down, Congress said "never again" never an open-ended commitment to put armed forces into potential harm's way on the sole judgment of one person, the president of the United States. Yes, the president was Commander-in-Chief, but only Congress had the authority to declare war. In the future, the decision to place American troops at risk would be the shared responsibility of the president and Congress acting together to define the role, scope and duration of the engagement.

War-making, the War Powers Act declared, was too serious a responsibility to be left to one person, whether it be George III or George Washington.

The participation of Congress in the decision to use military force tended to insure both adequate reflection on goals and objectives and adequate public support for the deployment. Vietnam, Congress well knew, became a military and political tragedy when the goals and objectives became elusive and when public support atrophied.

President Bush is now in the process of sending 28,000 troops to Somalia in a humanitarian exercise to feed starving people. There is no doubt as to the decency of the motivation. But there is also no doubt as to the risk that there could be some shooting and some combat incidents.

Twenty years ago the memory of Vietnam was etched in our national psyche. If the Somalian deployment had been presented then as a hypothetical in the Senate debate on the War Powers Act, there would have been lopsided agreement that such a military operation clearly came within the scope of the legislation. But that was then and this is now. Time and fleeting memory have loosened the psychological clutches of Vietnam. Why worry about Somalia? Aren't our enemies in Somalia merely anarchy, hunger and random gangs and thugs?

The Congressional leaders, House Speaker Tom Foley and Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, say the president is free to do what and how he pleases. Presumably he would also be free to act unilaterally in dispatching armed forces to feed the starving in Haiti, Liberia, Cambodia, Mozambique, Zaire, Sudan, Sarajevo, or a dozen other places. Hunger and chaos know neither human limits nor geographical boundaries. The United Nations, the Persian Gulf experience excepted, is a big talk, do-little outfit. The European Community can't agree on what day it is. The United States is not only "top cop," it is "only cop." Thus, if the new world order means that American armed forces are to police the globes, conquer hunger and restore order, the decision to do so should be a broadly based one grounded in law, the Constitution and continuing public support.

Without doubt Congress would endorse President Bush's decision to force feed Somalia. But Congress will not even be asked. If not consulted here, then why should the House and Senate be asked in the future when another President decides that humanitarian concerns or political chaos compel him to put other American men and women at risk?

The failure of Congress to demand a role in the Somalian affair may silence the legislators in future operations when risks are even more grave, missions are even more obscure and consequences even more perplexing.